[sdiy] Mail formats

[Andre Majorel]

On 2018-05-22 17:13 +0000, john slee wrote:

> Turning it into some elitist 'you can only use a mail client
> created prior to 1995 because harrumph' group is ridiculously
> anti-user and unnecessary. Is that your goal, plaintext email
> fanpeople?

1. Plain text is about the most basic format there is. It can be
   documented in one paragraph. It's so simple that it has been
   implemented in devices that do not even have a microprocessor,
   namely teletypes.

   For comparison, the standards for HTML 4 and CSS 2 added up
   to about 700 pages. God knows what it is now.

   If the mailer you use makes it more difficult to write plain
   text than HTML, that can hardly be explained by the
   difficulty of the task.

2. Elitism is not always in the other camp. Think of the common
   attitude of "if you do not use the latest web services with
   the latest software on the latest hardware, you are a cave
   man and therefore not worthy of consideration". How is that
   not elitist ?

3. Are there people who insist on plain text for bad reasons ?
   Sure. Just like there are people who insist on HTML for bad
   reasons.

4. Painting HTML users as victims of plain text users is
   specious. Me sending you a plain text message does not force
   you to have a text-only mailer. You sending me an HTML
   message forces me to have an HTML-capable mailer.

> As long as I can still post from the Gmail mobile app & Gmail
> web UI without going to stupid lengths that I don't need for
> _any other mailing list, even the most greybeard-y lists_, I'm
> happy
>
> FWIW almost all of my interactions with this list are on my
> iPhone in the Gmail app, killing time on public transport or
> similar.

In an earlier post, you described having problems with the list
as a result of one's choice of mailer as "self-inflicted". Would
you say that there is a double standard here ?

-- 
André Majorel http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/